YouTube caves and removes anti-Asian song after it stayed live for days despite outrage

YouTube has finally caved and removed an anti-Asian song after leaving it live for days despite drawing criticism.

In his song “Meet The Flockers” Compton-based rapper YG sang about the details of executing a robbery on a primarily Asian neighborhood.

“You find a house and scope it out/ Find a Chinese neighborhood ‘cause they don’t believe in bank accounts,” he rapped.

According to Bloomberg, many YouTube employees were urging executives to remove the song via internal message boards.

However, they were met with this response: “We find this video to be highly offensive and understand it is painful for many to watch, including many in Trust & Safety and especially given the ongoing violence against the Asian community.”

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The executives acknowledged that the lyrics could violate their hate speech policy but still pointed out that exceptions could be made for video clips with Educational, Documentary, Scientific, or Artistic (EDSA) qualities.

One employee responded to the executives via a complaint that received more than 400 upvotes.

“This is your perfect opportunity to demonstrate your leadership as a lead for ‘Racial Justice Initiative.’ Which side of the Edmund Pettus Bridge do you want to be on?” the post said.

Now, it appears that the push for YouTube executives to do the right thing has worked. If you type in YG’s “Meet The Flockers” on the platform, the original song no longer appears, which is a positive step forward.

Despite this, there is news coverage about a robbery that was allegedly inspired by the song, as well as re-uploaded videos with poor-sounding audio, which will most likely get the boot soon.

A live performance from when the rapper performed at a concert in Japan still happens to be on the site, however.

Covid-19 related hate crimes against Asian Americans have been on the rise in the pandemic. And businesses, including YouTube, are now taking a stand to do the best they can to remove toxic rhetoric against marginalized groups of people.